Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Getting The Message Across
Back in May, Scotwise extensively quoted Charles Finney on "How to preach without converting anybody," and the opening paragraph of that quote may be one of the most succinct summations of what is wrong with 90% of what passes for preaching in this age I have ever read:
When we call people to Christianity, we do not call them to utter words, because frankly, that is too easy and we have no way on knowing the reality of those words in that person's life.
Because of the ventilator, my father could not speak for the last days of his life. But he was active and communicative. He held everyone's hand and squeezed them hard. He looked my mother in the eye with a passion I have never before witnessed. All this until Mom was back in Indidanapolis safe. Then it was just he and I and he looked at me one last time before he went to sleep only to die a few days later, as if to say, "My job is done, I got your mom home."
I told Mom about what happened after she left, and her reponse was, "That's just like him." For the rest of her life my mother will not have to worry if my father loved her because he could not say so in the end; he made it more evident than words could possibly convey.
What does the Lord know with such certainty about you? What do your actions demonstrate apart from your words. Do they demostrate an obsession with what God can do for you? Or, do they demostrate God as the 'center of your devotion'?
Related Tags: action, words, commitment, Charles Finney
Preach on every doctrine that centers the attention on man rather than Jesus. Teach every doctrine that makes man the center of God's attention rather than God the center of man's devotion. Tell people only what God will do for them. Avoid preaching about the necessity of a radical change of heart, through the truth revealed to the heart by the agency of the Holy Spirit.In 1975, I was a college freshman and it was a dark year in my life. Into the darkness came a long letter from my father. There in the conclusion were these words:
John, I don't tell you 'I love you' much because words are easy. I try to show my love through action so that you know it is real, and it is very real.The wisdom in those words has guided my life since. Words are easy, but love and committment and action on those is not.
When we call people to Christianity, we do not call them to utter words, because frankly, that is too easy and we have no way on knowing the reality of those words in that person's life.
Because of the ventilator, my father could not speak for the last days of his life. But he was active and communicative. He held everyone's hand and squeezed them hard. He looked my mother in the eye with a passion I have never before witnessed. All this until Mom was back in Indidanapolis safe. Then it was just he and I and he looked at me one last time before he went to sleep only to die a few days later, as if to say, "My job is done, I got your mom home."
I told Mom about what happened after she left, and her reponse was, "That's just like him." For the rest of her life my mother will not have to worry if my father loved her because he could not say so in the end; he made it more evident than words could possibly convey.
What does the Lord know with such certainty about you? What do your actions demonstrate apart from your words. Do they demostrate an obsession with what God can do for you? Or, do they demostrate God as the 'center of your devotion'?
Related Tags: action, words, commitment, Charles Finney
